the news about over 100+ people have been arrested for deliberately starting fires
But this literally never happened. It's fake news.
I'm not Australian, but I heard that some of the reason the bush fires situation got out of control was that some official body decided to change the rules on fire burning, which a lot of farmers do to their fields to burn off the dead grass. Seen as you're in Australia is there any truth in that?
No, it's completely false. Back burning and hazard reduction burns are essential practices, entirely legal, and strongly encouraged. They are typically conducted during winter. Between 2010-2019 Australia conducted more prescribed burning than at any other time in our history.
The difficulty we're facing is that the window for safe prescribed burning has been considerably narrowed by climate change, so we have less time to get it all done before bushfire season starts. Not only that, but the fires we're seeing these days are so vast and powerful that they can cross barriers previously considered impassible. This season we've seen fires leaping across roads (which is normal) and rivers (which is not normal). Worse still, the fires have become large enough to generate their own local weather, including lighting strikes that start additional fires.
Finally, the fires destroyed areas where fuel reduction had already been carried out. Their size and ferocity enabled them to sweep through land which had already been cleared to the point where most bushfires would be unable to proceed due to lack of fuel. We've even seen fires moving across clear paddocks containing little more than stubble. Under normal circumstances this should be impossible. But we're living in a new 'normal.'
